Jessica Lawson (she/her/hers) is Pushcart-nominated writer, teacher, and queer single parent. Raised in the Midwest and now based in Denver, she holds a B.A. from Smith College, a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, and an M.F.A. from the University of Colorado-Boulder, where she served as an editor for Timber Journal. Her debut poetry collection, Gash Atlas, is a nightmarish cartography of life in the Trump era. Through poetic and visual “maps,” this collection excavates nested layers of sexuality, violence, and white supremacy, finally turning the lens of critique back on its own speaker. Gash Atlas was selected by judge Erica Hunt for the Kore Press Institute Poetry Prize and is forthcoming Spring 2022. Her chapbook Rot Contracts (Trouble Department 2020) focuses on family rupture, the law, and the limits of human bonds, and her other writings have appeared in The Rumpus, Dreginald, Entropy, The Wanderer, and elsewhere. Her academic work on 20th and 21st century literature focuses on the impact of marginalization on the body as well as the politics of literary experiment. She teaches undergraduate classes on literary history, creative writing, and gender studies, as well as community workshops focusing on formal innovations in poetry by writers of color and LGBTQIA+ writers.